Newsletter

Across the region

SANDY SPRINGS, GA. — Authorities say a 22-year-old metro Atlanta man has been found dead after he apparently drowned while trying to swim across the Chattahoochee River.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources identified the man as Girona L. Pye of Woodstock. Sgt. Mike Barr of the DNR said his body was recovered Sunday morning.

Barr said that Pye vanished beneath the river waters Saturday while he was on an outing with friends. Witnesses told investigators he was trying to swim across the river with a friend when Pye appeared to get tired and went under without resurfacing.

The DNR says no foul play is suspected in the drowning, but alcohol may have been a factor.

Woman feels ‘lucky’ after shot to head

MACON, GA. — A Macon woman says “I was lucky” after shooting outside the convenience store where she works left the clerk with a bullet lodged in her head.

Doris Day says “God was looking out for me” after she survived being struck by a ricocheting gunshot Saturday.

Day was back at Kris’s Corner Shop, walking around the crime scene with a fresh bandage on her head hours after she was shot. The gunfire erupted from a car wash next to the store while was standing outside.

Day says a bullet bounced off the building and lodged in her forehead, but didn’t penetrate her skull. She says doctors decided to wait several days before removing the slug.

Teacher cleared of cheating allegation

ATLANTA — An Atlanta Public Schools teacher who was accused of cheating on several standardized tests has been reinstated by a panel of educators.

Angela Williamson became the first APS educator to have her job reinstated. She appeared before the tribunal in the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test cheating scandal.

In tears after the decision, Williamson said she knew she was innocent and looked forward to getting her life back.

State investigators said that Williamson prompted students during the CRCT test to change their answers while she was a teacher a Dobbs Elementary in 2008 and 2009.

Her lawyer, Gerald Griggs, says they will consider suing the district.

Mother healing from infection

GREENVILLE, S.C. — A new South Carolina mother hospitalized with a flesh-eating bacterial infection has been able to spend some time with her month-old twins.

Her husband says Lana Kuykendall had a brief visit with Ian and Abigail on Thursday.

Kuykendall has been hospitalized since days after giving birth to the healthy children at an Atlanta hospital last month. When the new family of four returned to their Piedmont home, Kuykendall – who is also a paramedic – noticed a lesion on her left leg.

As the spot began to spread, Kuykendall went to a local hospital, where she has since undergone more than a dozen surgeries to stop the spread of necrotizing fasciitis.

Her husband says his wife is improving and has been weaned off IV drips of sedatives and pain medicine.

In other news

A LAWSUIT IS seeking to remove the son of late U.S. Strom Thurmond from a South Carolina state Senate race. A hearing is scheduled today, the day before primary elections. The lawsuit says Paul Thurmond should be disqualified from the GOP race because he didn’t submit financial forms at the same time as candidacy paperwork. The suit was filed by the husband of Carol Tempel, a Democrat who left a state House race after a similar paperwork problem.